‘Tying up economies like Germany & Greece was doomed to fiasco’

A man cleans the pavement behind a wall on which posters showing the word 'No' in Greek are sticked in Athens, Greece, July 2, 2015 (Reuters / Christian Hartmann) / Reuters

The eurozone project is a complete fiasco so Greece should be allowed to go back to the drachma, to devalue and to rebuild itself, columnist and podcaster Jon Gaunt told RT. This might be the beginning of the end of the whole EU he adds.

RT:In a strongly-worded statement,
Germany's Finance Minister has accused the Greek government of
doing “nothing since it came to office.”Do you think this is
indicative of the EU's level of trust in Athens?

Jon Gaunt: I think they have been playing a game
of cat and mouse, and the Greek PM played what he thought was his
trump card and obviously now he has to capitulate on some of the
things he said. I think the relationships have broken down but it
just sums up what’s wrong with the EU. I’m somebody who is ever
so glad that the UK never joined the euro, and I’m certainly glad
that we are not part of this complete fiasco and it is an
absolute fiasco. The idea of tying Germany’s economy or the UK’s
economy to the economy of somewhere like Greece - it was always
going to end like this. And why we are allowing it to prolong? We
should allow Greece to go. It needs to go back to the drachma and
it needs to devalue and then hopefully it can rebuild itself from
there. But it’s the beginning of the end of the EU, that’s what
I’m hoping for anyway. It’s all nonsense.

RT:Why should Greece get away with it when
other countries - like Italy for example - also have been through
a lot in recent years?

JG: Absolutely. My daughter’s got an Italian
boyfriend and he was making exactly that point a few days ago. It
will be a domino effect across Europe. The simple bottom line is
– Greece owes this money, we all know they can’t pay it all back
but austerity is here. Greece must play its part. Whereas what’s
happened is this Greek leftist government have tried to play
games and thought the EU wouldn’t be strong enough to push it
through, it would appear that after this idea of having this
nonsense referendum… Let’s face it - it’s not even going to get
all the referendum papers printed and out to the outlying
islands. This isn’t a democratic referendum and the Germans have
clearly said “Ok, if that’s the way you want to behave, to be
like a naughty child, you go to bed and we’ll think about it
again tomorrow, we will talk about it then”. And that’s the only
way to deal with them because this idea that the Greek people can
decide, it’s not up to the Greek people. Are we going to have a
referendum right across Europe then? Are the Italians going to be
allowed not to pay what they owe? Are their austerity cuts still
going to be in place whilst the Greeks get away with it? I don’t
think so.

RT:Earlier Alexis Tsipras pointed out that
his country wouldn’t be choked out of the eurozone. Was it a
bluff?

JG: He might be choking on behalf of the Greek
people and the idea that the Greek people can decide whether or
not they are going to pay back the money is marvelous, isn’t it?
They are bound to vote for it, they are not turkeys; they are not
going to vote for Christmas, are they? So he is obviously going
to get the vote he wants but it won’t make a blind bit of
difference. I think the Germans in particular have lost patience.
Where it goes after that – I don’t know.

RT:If they lost patience are we going to
see a deal then? Can the Greeks work with the Germans?

JG: That’s the problem; once you get to this
kind of brinkmanship started by the Greek government you’ve got a
real problem. How do you draw back from here? It’s like any
negotiation, again going back to the idea of a negotiation even
with a child. You can’t just use the big stick; you’ve got to
have a bit of carrot. In a deal - a business deal, a government
deal like this - everybody is going to come out thinking they’ve
got something out of it whereas what’s happened now has become a
face off. I think there is only one inevitable conclusion which
is that Greece will default again and Greece will leave the EU.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.